POLL: Is the IRC better then the WRC these days?

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Originally Posted by Allyc85

Look at the entry for this weekends IRC round and then compare it to what we had in WRC Mexico... enough said ;)

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I must say, I was personally on Canarias and also on Monte (better start list than Mexico). Despite what is written in start list, much more interesting and spectacular for me was Canarias. The performance which I have seen at first two cars for whole race I havent seen at any crew through whole Monte (maybe except Ogier and sometimes Andersson). There were groups really fighting for their places (first place (Andy,Jan), third place (Monzon, Gassner, Wiegand), 2WD win (Vinyes, Anxustegi, Marrero), which is more interesting than "must be in finish" in WRC...

Yes, IRC is not so good as last years, especially because there is no other manufacturer like Skoda who is doing complete championship. This is a part of "FIA game" which is killing S2000 cars and there is actually no other appropriate category.

I think the golden age of rally is long gone
There're not many manufacturers and they don't wanna invest their money in this field

I think that last year the things were going in the right direction in IRC. 2011 IRC season was the best since the start of the series. But 2012 will be the worst IRC season ever. It will be just Mikkelsen vs a half of a driver (Kopecky/Hanninen). Hanninen was the only one who could beat Mikkelsen for the title. And I think he was a little better than Mikkelsen. And also we had Neuville, Bouffier, Loix, Wilks, Gardemeister who could make a good impression. Now there are just few tourists and some local drivers. So that's why I would say +1 to WRC.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Crocone

I think that last year the things were going in the right direction in IRC. 2011 IRC season was the best since the start of the series. But 2012 will be the worst IRC season ever. It will be just Mikkelsen vs a half of a driver (Kopecky/Hanninen). Hanninen was the only one who could beat Mikkelsen for the title. And I think he was a little better than Mikkelsen. And also we had Neuville, Bouffier, Loix, Wilks, Gardemeister who could make a good impression. Now there are just few tourists and some local drivers. So that's why I would say +1 to WRC.

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There are some very good and/or promising drivers in IRC this year too but unfortunately not many with a full enough programme to take on Mikkelsen. It seems that maybe Skoda are going to send Juho+Jan to some more events which might keep the title alive for longer but this year it will be like in WRC with Loeb, either Mikkelsen is going to win it or Mikkelsen is going to lose it. For more, we have to wait for Peugeot to come back with the 208 R4T.